Education & Pedagogy

Comprehensive approaches to sex education emphasise an integration of the mind and the body via emotions. Drawing on the historiographical shift towards the study of emotions, this paper explores cognitive, bodily and emotional dimensions of sexuality education and social relations. By analysing the institutionalisation of sex education in Luxembourg, the paper examines often neglected sex education material as well as political reform debates in a Catholic-conservative context. The analysis demonstrates that in the mid-1980s, and despite public disputes, reform opponents shared a common horizon in sex education: they promoted emotional education to channel sexual practices in the direction of family formation. As a consequence, emotional education marginalised bodies, sexualities and forms of relationship that were not conforming to the ideal of a happy heterosexual dyad in which 'love and sexuality belong together'. It is argued that the prohibition was part of a twofold emotionalisation of sex education in the 1980s.

The field of teacher education is abuzz with a quest for innovation, with public and private stakeholders seeking ways to improve teacher efficacy, support equity, and address the countless challenges of education in the 21st century. Technology often dominates these conversations. From online learning to virtual reality, "innovation" is often defined in digital scientific terms. Lost in the tech-saturated conversation is a different type of innovation--one grounded in authentic problem-solving from within the local community. In this approach (often referred to as place-based education [PBE]), teachers learn to engage youth in tackling the social and environmental challenges they will (and already) face--from climate change to inequality to interpersonal relationships. With its focus on integrating academic achievement and student agency toward collective well-being, PBE seamlessly advances the competencies students need as scholars, citizens, and neighbors. This article will unfold the basic principles of community-based teacher education and offer examples from three different countries: Jamaica, Nigeria, and the United States.

Education is important for the successful development and growth of individuals and societies, yet some factors adversely affect its provision. This article reports on a study that explored the factors that adversely affect education in the Builsa District located in the Upper East Region (UER) of Northern Ghana, by examining the attitudes and concerns of the people in Chuchuliga regarding education. Surveys were administered to students, parents/guardians and head teachers, and interviews and focus group discussions were held with opinion leaders and school dropouts, respectively. A striking finding was that the Tono Irrigation Dam located at Navrongo and farming, which is the predominant economic activity, negatively affect education in the community. Further findings were that the late introduction of education in Northern Ghana and traditional beliefs about education, as well as other long-established factors are responsible for high illiteracy and school-dropout rates. Recommendations to improve the quality of education in the district and country are discussed.

Higher education is essential to the acquisition of human knowledge, development of the economy and reformation of the society in all nations. University education is the foremost source of providing the required knowledge that will help generate and accelerate knowledge flow for modern based economies. It plays invaluable roles in the production of quality manpower for the development of the nation. This article reports on a study that addressed the concepts of nation building; quality education; teacher education; current status of teacher education in Nigeria; and teacher education and nation building in Nigeria. The article further recommends strategies for improving teacher education and training (TET) in Nigerian universities, which include, retraining of academic staff in the Nigerian university system (NUS) to embrace ICT/e-learning/m-learning, curbing of financial wastage in the NUS; downsizing the number of support staff; and concentrating more attention on the recruitment of high quality academic staff for enhanced delivery.

This article discusses the justification for inclusive education in Australia, whilst being cognizant of the wider international landscape. Separate educational provision is increasing in many countries, including Australia. Inclusive education has plateaued to a degree with demand increasing for non-inclusive settings. There are three main components to the argument for and against inclusive education and these are the educational, social, and the economic justification. There is clear evidence that inclusive education in Australia can be justified across these areas. There is a dearth of evidence that inclusive education is less than beneficial for all students in mainstream schools. In fact, studies show that there is an economic advantage to being fully inclusive, but this should not be seen as an opportunity for cost saving in the education sector but rather as proper deployment of resources to ensure effective education for all students no matter what their background. The evidence for social and educational benefits is vast with both parents and students reporting positive outcomes. Inclusive education can be fraught with difficulties, but this article clearly shows the positive justification for inclusive educational environments.

This article discusses the efforts of the Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP), at the University of Idaho, a predominately white institution (PWI) of higher education, and its struggle to create space in higher education for intentional support of Indigenous self-determination, sovereignty, and Tribal nation building through the preparation of Indigenous teachers. In doing so, we examine the contentious and local work of reimagining education, from the bottom up and top down, to develop leaders to serve the needs of Indigenous youth and communities through the vehicle of mainstream institutions. With data from a multiyear ethnographic documentation, we examine the experiences of IKEEP program administration, teacher mentors, and students through the conceptual lens of Tribal nation building in higher education. Our findings underscore how teacher education programs at PWIs need to engage in a radical shift toward seeing Indigenous teachers as nation builders and to prioritize the infrastructure and programmatic collaboration to support them and their communities as such.

We reviewed 48 articles related to the engineering design process in science education published from 2010 to 2020. There are several previous literature review studies that analyzed the engineering design process in science education. However, we have not found any that investigates projects, discussed topics, as well as the benefits of the implementation of the engineering design process in science education. The research method used was a systematic literature review. This study analyzed the characteristics of the content based on year of publication, type of publications, countries that implement it, research approach, educational stage, and science content. The findings show that the projects used in the implementation of the engineering design processes in science education varied according to the discussed topics. The benefits of the implementation of the engineering design process in science education include cognitive benefits, procedural (skills) benefits, attitudinal benefits, and a combination of the three benefits.

Racial disproportionality in special education is an ongoing injustice in schools in the United States. In this article, we investigate the key relationships among education policy, context, and racial disproportionality in special education. We examine this nexus by analyzing one U.S. school district's response to federal citations for disproportionality in both the over-identification of students of color in special education and over-representation of students of color with disabilities being disciplined. Our findings demonstrate the important role of historical legacies of inequality and the limitations of technical approaches to equity oriented education policies. We end by offering a critical disability education policy approach that accounts for complex sociocultural contexts, attending to disability and its intersections, in an effort to move toward more just and equitable education policies.

As digital education at the postsecondary level continues to grow, robust professional development that prepares faculty to teach in online and blended settings is necessary. In this study, we analyzed open-ended comments from the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association's annual survey of Canadian postsecondary institutions (2017-2019) to deepen our understanding of faculty training and support for digital education as articulated by higher education institutions. We found that: (a) digital education orientation or on-boarding processes for faculty vary widely; (b) institutions employ an extensive array of professional development practices for digital education; (c) institutions report culture change, work security, and unclear expectations as challenges in providing digital education training and support; and (d) institutions articulate aspirations and hopes around professional development investments in order to build digital education capacity. These findings have significant implications for research and practice, which we describe in this article.

Although several reforms have shifted the direction of education, a debate on the strengths and limitations of science education in Kosovo has not yet been initiated. The present article analyses the development of chemistry education in Kosovo and encourages questions that could shape science education practices in general. In particular, the article analyses the pre-university chemistry curriculum in Kosovo over the years, as well as examining chemistry teacher education programmes. The analysis is based on descriptive research of data and document analysis. The multidimensional analysis of the issues and challenges of chemistry education will provide recommendations for future research on chemistry education and chemistry teaching practices in order to make chemistry education and the pre-university chemistry curriculum relevant to the context of Kosovo. As pre-university education curricula, especially the curriculum for the natural sciences, and the preparation of both pre-service and inservice teachers in Kosovo are considered challenging, a firm conclusion for actions has not been reached. Nevertheless, the article seeks to spark a debate in the field.

In 2012 the Danish Parliament passed legislation mandating that 96% of all students in compulsory public education attend regular classes. This target generally led to severe strains within local education authorities in Denmark. Civil servants, school principals, and teachers experienced inclusive education as a challenge rather than as an opportunity. In 2015 a municipality in Northern Jutland even decided to increase the target to 97% of all students. This article analyses the process and challenges of how inclusive education policies in this particular municipality were implemented and enacted between 2015 and 2019. Drawing on qualitative data, the article maps the discourse surrounding inclusive education and the organizational interactions between three levels of the local education authority: the political level, the civil servant level, and the local school level. The concluding discussion reports the findings and sheds light on the local challenges of organizational change in terms of inclusive education policies.

Working with gender equality in teacher education embraces a wide range of policies and practices. Against the backdrop of relevant research on gender in preschools, universities and teacher education, the study provides an outlook of the praxis on selected Swedish university programmes for preschool teacher education and teachers in extended education. The study is inspired by educational ethnography and applies quantitative and qualitative text analyses of programme and course documents. The article describes how gender perspectives can be systematically incorporated into university teaching through curriculum design and constructive aligned teaching. The author discusses whether the described pedagogical practices and gender inclusion in higher education have the potential to promote (preschool) teacher students' systematic acquisition of values, knowledge and skills as a precondition for improving sustainable pedagogical practices. The article also touches on the relevance of the results for the field of extended education and academic training for pedagogues and teachers who work in non-formal educational settings.

Comparative and international education intersects with international relations, international development and modernization, and domestic political, cultural, and economic concerns. Therefore, the history of comparative and international education must be understood in a larger historical context. This article engages the current debate on the founding history of American comparative and international education. It addresses specifically the role of the , Columbia University in the formation of comparative education as a formal academic field in America. Of particular importance is the investigation of the immediate social and cultural concerns in post-World War I America that informed the motivation and purposes of expanding international education and comparative studies of different nations' educational ideas, practices, conditions, and systems. A closer look at the founding leaders' views on the relations of different cultures in terms of social progress further sheds light on how education was perceived as a tool for social change and the extension of American values across the globe.

Formal agricultural education first appeared in Louisiana in 1909 under the supervision of the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE). The LDOE and Louisiana State University (LSU) jointly employed the first state director of agricultural education. Then, by the late 20thCentury, the evolving philosophy of vocational education and state budget cuts led to the end of career and technical student organization supervision within the LDOE. Needing a new home, Louisiana's agricultural education leaders employed their personal and political influence to secure office space at the LSU AgCenter. This move came with challenges and struggles as the nature of FFA supervision and the relationship between agriscience teachers, the LDOE, and the LSU AgCenter evolved into its current arrangement. Louisiana is now one of 16 states and territories to have no LDOE employees directly supervising the FFA or agricultural education programs. The experiences of those involved in this historical narrative and the lessons learned provide valuable knowledge for current and future state agricultural education leadership in adapting to political and cultural changes that influence career and technical education.

If special education teacher evaluation systems are to meet their promise of improving practice for students with disabilities, they need to be designed in a way that promotes and rewards strong instructional practice. In 2010, the Idaho State Department of Education (SDE) partnered with researchers from Boise State University to develop a special education evaluation tool. The goal was to ensure that special education teachers were integrated into the state's initiative to include teacher accountability as part of its larger education reform efforts. The result of this collaboration is a pilot evaluation tool called Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) that is grounded in the Danielson framework, spans the professional lifespan from preservice to master teacher, with plans to link the evaluation to include student growth measures as a component of the process. In this article, the process undertaken to design and pilot the instrument is described, and plans for next steps are discussed.